RELEASE DAY: "Ashen Rayne (Shadowlands Book 1)" by Skye Knizley

Young women are vanishing from Miami’s club scene, most disappearing without a trace, others found suffocated in plastic bags, their battered corpses filled with a deadly cocktail of narcotics.
There are no suspects and few clues.
When exotic dancer Rayne is taken, her sister Blaze calls the ladies of Shadowlands to find her.
With only five days before Rayne is found dead or never found at all, Smoak and Ash dive into Miami’s underworld of drugs, prostitution and slavery, using every skill they have to find her before the clock runs out.
Alone? 
Afraid? 
Lost?
In trouble and have nowhere to turn?
Call Shadowlands. We’re here to help.

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Kick ass women in fiction. Ever since I started reading, I always gravitated towards books where the heroine needs no man for help: Nicki Styx, the lead in Terri Garey's urban fantasy series. Raven Madison, in Ellen Schreiber's Vampire Kisses series. But those kinds of women are hard to find. Most of them fall short of what I'm always looking for...except for Smoak. Now there's a female lead!
She's too good to even be called bad ass. From page one you know there's something different about her and Ashley. Ashley is actually deaf, and you wouldn't know it except that they use TTY phones and in the first chapter it is mentioned. Skye didn't write her as disabled. Instead, she uses her disability to her advantage. Smoak is not disabled...she is actually too capable, if that's possible. It's her seeming invincibility that makes you love Ashley more: for showing her scars and her handicaps. But you learn that Smoak is not invincible, and that she does not have a heart of stone.
I don't like to review good books, because I am always afraid I'll run off at the mouth and post spoilers! I'll just try to stick to the basics.
The story should be in the dictionary for "fast paced". But it is not lacking in any department. There is no shortage of emotion, nor is there any detail missing. They define "women's fiction" as being targeted towards women by talking about women's experiences. If they put books like these down as "women's fiction", I bet we'd have had a female president by now. Reading this book was not just exhilarating for me, but as a young woman it makes me feel empowered to read a story about girls like these.
It's vigilante justice without a mask, leaving nothing and no one in her wake. This is not a book by a woman for women. This is a book by an amazing writer for anyone who wants to read real, action-packed fiction.

5/5--put this at the top of your TBR list immediately!

Purchase Ashen Rayne on Amazon!

BOOK REVIEW: "Transfixion" by J. Giambrone

Every so often, you read a book that makes you stay up till all hours of the morning just so you can finish it. Transfixion is that book.

Kaylee Colton is a high school girl and bibliophile. She has just received the latest book in her favorite series, Ghostliest, and all she wants to do is read it. No TV, no internet. Just good ol' ghost hunters Jasmine and Kurtz.
But then, the world ends.
Everyone has been hypnotized by the TV and computer transmissions. She watches as her older brother stabs their mother to death. On a quest for survival, she meets a bad boy named Dustin and they hole up with a few other survivors in the high school, but is it a futile attempt, add the rest of the world has gone insane?

First of all, this is NOT your typical YA dystopian novel. It's not the future. It's right now, featuring kids just like us, including the endearing main character, Kaylee The Bibliophile. Dustin could be the bad boy you crush on in the back of the class, Sara your little sister, and the other kids your classmates.
Aside from the believability of the characters, there's the vivid way in which Mr. Giambrone tells the tale. You're inside Kaylee's mind, you're watching the "dupes" try and kill all the normal people. You're fighting along with her.
She's also got a psychological quirk, suddenly becoming mute after the events occur. It's a topic for discussion for sure one you've read the book.
There's everything from a to z in this story, and it will keep you up all night (I'm writing this at one in the morning). Your next obsession? Transfixion.

5/5--absolutely amazing! Must read!

Purchase Transfixion via:

Amazon

Barnes And Noble

Createspace (paperback)

BOOK REVIEW: "Jazz Baby" by Beem Weeks

Emily Ann (AKA "Baby") Teegarten is a teen with a dream: she wants to go to New York to sing jazz, but first she needs to get out of Mississippi and her little one-horse town. The only way to do that is to trust her papa's best friend, Tanyon Thibbedeaux, who can get her into New Orleans to get her start.
But her start is rocky as her first attempt at singing in Frank Rydekker's jazz club ends in a riot and a rape and then a family tragedy: Emily Ann's mother killed her father and is now sitting in prison.
Baby wants to have fun and make her dreams come true. She doesn't want to live with her cranky old aunt in Mississippi, surrounded by temptations (her aunt's young African-American maid Neesie, Emily Ann's secret desire; the preacher's son Jobie Pritchett, who wants to marry her but yet claims she isn't his "type"; Audie, the girl everyone thinks is the town lesbian; Billy Blood, the Native American young man who is a daily temptation to nearly every young girl in town, including her beloved Neesie).
How can she when life keeps taking turns for the worse every day?

This is a coming-of-age story showing the trials and tribulations of being a small-town white girl who wants to play what was then the music of the African-American community. The novel deals with race, sexual promiscuity, confusion about sexual orientation, rape and murder, not to mention the drug and alcohol problem of the 1920's. It is written in the dialect of the era, which was new to me, but made the whole story seem more genuine.I wasn't really sure what to expect when I opened this book on my ereader. I enjoy stories from the late 19th to the early 20th century but rarely can you find anything written in this decade about those times that really strikes as original and accurate.

Jazz Baby is both.

Beem Weeks may have taken a decade to write this novel, but it was worth it. He created an emotional roller coaster of a novel with characters you will love, hate and relate to in a time when being bad felt so good and music could be heard on every corner, luring in even the most innocent and pious of souls.
Like jazz, this novel also lures you in, making you love Emily Ann as a friend or daughter and want to know if she ever is able to achieve her dreams.
I never give away endings (though I admit to using spoilers every so often), but I will say that, when you finish this novel, you will want a sequel, as Emily Ann's story is one you will want to know until the end!

Really excellent first novel, with social commentary on drugs, sex and the human conscience. I give it a 4/5.

Purchase Jazz Baby via the following:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Direct from the publisher, Fresh Ink Group

Stay tuned tomorrow for an exclusive interview with the author, Beem Weeks!